#17. And The Clocks Rolled Forward

An ode to all the headache girlies out there.

Hi! This essay was an experiment written almost entirely in real time (roughly noon to midnight) in the midst of a migraine, and lightly edited the next day with a clearer mind. If you’re a person who often loses an entire day to headaches or migraines, trust me when I say I understand!

I’ve never been very good at keeping track of daylight saving time. It often surprises me, as if out of the blue, and I have to remind myself whether we’ve gained one hour or lost it, as if time is suddenly a thing that can simply evaporate into thin air.

I wake early on Sunday morning with my head throbbing, a tacit reminder of the loveliest night before. I’m at the point in my life where if I don’t have a perfect 1:1 ratio of alcohol to water, I will wake up hungover, even in the absence of feeling “drunk” by any definition of the word. Though I love being in my 30s, this is one such item that accompanies this decade that I could sincerely do without.

I make my fiancé a cup of coffee before he heads out the door, missing the mug slightly as I pour and spilling it all over like I am known to do on occasion. I watch the dark liquid pool on the counter for a moment, contemplating how many times I can do this before it will leave a stain. He sips at his caffeine gratefully and then sets the cup down, half full, before heading hurriedly out the door like he’s done every Saturday and Sunday morning for the past month or so, off to help multiple people attempt to buy houses they will probably get after an exhausting bidding war that takes several days (and back-and-forths) in counters. I drink a full glass of water and crawl back into bed, bringing the covers over my eyes and silently cursing our windows for not having any shades.

When I wake again, my phone reads 11:02 am. Impossible, I think. I haven’t slept in this late in a decade. I make my way back into the kitchen and start washing the 27 glasses stacked in our sink full of varying shades of pink water we used to entertain the night before, and glance sideways at the clock on the oven, which reads 10:04 am, like it’s fucking with me.

“Oh,” I say out loud to no one, realizing the clocks must have rolled forward last night. I play Endless Summer Vacation on the living room speakers and try to find the fervor with which I cleaned the house the previous day preparing for our wine tasting, but I can’t quite get there. I listen to “Jaded” three times in a row, which yesterday caused spontaneous tears while I folded laundry and let my brain wander slightly to what now feels like a past life, but today I feel almost nothing, other than wondering if it’s better than “Flowers.” Ultimately, I decide, it is.

With the thought of buying myself flowers planted in my mind, I walk unsteadily to the living room to check on the raspberry hued garden roses I picked out after a particularly bad day at work last week. Their effect on me is still noticeable, though I can see they’re starting ever so slightly to wilt. A wilted flower feels like it perfectly captures my mood so I leave them be, feeling oddly comforted by this show of solidarity.

I glance out the window and notice the snow is falling heavier now, the entire scene a blaze of white interrupted by the dark brown streaks of leafless trees. I stare for a moment admiring its beauty, though I’ve long been hoping, wishing, needing it to stop.

I climb back in bed and slowly make my way through the final two essays in an anthology I’m reading by 16 writers who chose not to have kids. The book has more tiny neon flags protruding from its slim pages than any other book I’ve ever read, academic or otherwise, marking passages I thought profound or otherwise noteworthy. I bookmark it in my mind to share in a future essay.

The pain in my head begins to transform into a migraine, so I curl up on the floor of my shower and let the hot water cascade down around me, feeling a bit like Ophelia in the river before she drowns, knowing I look far less picturesque. Paul returns home just as I’m pulling myself out of the shower onto the bathroom floor, kneeling in front of the toilet, my hands clutching the cold porcelain. He rubs my back and asks if I need anything, but I know it’s coming and mumble “aw honey, don’t watch” right before it happens.

Darkness falls, and the pain begins to subside, now more of a quiet pressure than a raging storm. I half-heartedly attempt to eat a piece of pizza and text my sister to apologize for missing my nephew’s hockey game, knowing I’m well on my way to winning an award for worst aunt of the year.

I get into bed again, head heavy, eyes staring at the ceiling long after the time suggests I should be awake. I question how I’ll feel tomorrow; both in the sense of my mental state and physical form. I know I will simply roll forward, like the clocks–wondering what bright thing was lost in the missing hour, which feels to me like an entire day. I drift off to sleep, Paul’s hand in mine, thinking about what valuable time I will never get back.

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Does this photo even need a caption????????

What’s Up This Week

Just being Miley

On my first listen through Miley Cyrus’ new album, Endless Summer Vacation, flawless breakup bop “Jaded” was the standout song for me. A few years ago I would have scream-cried to this song on repeat, no question. On subsequent listens, “Violet Chemistry” has emerged triumphant as the best song on this album (the name is a little too close to “Lavender Haze” for me but it’s so good we’ll allow it lol) and I’m sure I’ll be listening to it well into summer. Such a fucking jam. People seem to really like “River,” but it sounds too much like a ripoff of Lady Gaga in her Chromatica era to me. Overall though, the album is fine, with some great bops and swinging misses (“Muddy Feet” is, in my humble opinion, garbage).

I’m deciding if I want to buy a rug from Floyd for our office, so I Googled the name of the rug and stumbled upon the Michigan home tour of Floyd’s co-founder, Kyle Hoff. Of course, almost everything in the midcentury home is from Floyd so it does look a biiiiit like a catalog, but I really dig it, especially the purple sofa in the living room. The rug in question is in fact in the house, but barely visible and in a kid’s bedroom, haha. I still think I’m going to buy it though!

This showwwwwwwwwwwwww

I might write about The Last of Us for next week’s issue and I’ve picked it as “show of the week” like three times so I won’t go on and on about it right now, but dammit I loved this series all the way through to the end! It’s easily the best thing I’ve watched on TV since House of The Dragon ended. No spoilers here, but I loved the moral/ethical debate that was sparked by the Season 1 finale, even if I was screaming at the television for about 20 minutes straight. My best friend’s husband has played the game and informed me that there is in fact a The Last of Us Part 2 game, which will serve as the basis for Season 2 of the show. Needless to say I will be watching, and in the meantime, wondering: Where do we go from here???

Though I have never played the game and therefore can’t really relate to this take, I thought this essay about the limitations of the show re: the ending was a great read.

I read Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids in just a few sittings. Curled up in a battered leather armchair, I fervently consumed six of the essays right in a row at a coffee shop while trying not to cry in public, I felt so seen. I can’t remember who recommended it to me, so if you’re reading, please raise your hand so I can properly thank you!!

One reason I loved this anthology so much is because I’ve never read anything like it. Though there was a certain homogeneity to many of the essays (each story was written by people who all chose the same career, so there’s bound to be a lot of similarities there), overall, I loved how many different perspectives there were about choosing not to have kids. Some of the essays hit me like a ton of bricks, and some felt completely foreign. Most of the writers are past their childbearing years looking back, and it was so welcoming and reassuring to read about women (and a few men) who never regretted their decision. I flagged so many passages I may share some of them in a future newsletter. If you’ve never heard of this book, you can read a review here.

Paul sent me “Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed it and Fled” last week. It’s a transcript of a commencement speech given by Bill Watterson–the cartoonist behind Calvin & Hobbes–in 1990. It resonated with me so much I sent it to my best friend, too:

“I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success. Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime.

But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.”

This section will never contain spoilers for how the season ends (which I don’t know), but will discuss everything that has already aired by the time you’re reading it!

Our next Bachelorette, actual angel on Earth Charity Lawson

Well, we have our next Bachelorette. Regrettably, I am underwhelmed. I think Charity is super sweet and one of the nicest humans on the planet, but I don’t think she’s the right person to lead her own season. I was so looking forward to seeing her find love in Paradise! I won’t drag on about it, but this definitely wasn’t the news I was hoping for when I logged onto Instagram right after watching the ‘Hometowns’ episode (I’m always a day behind so I haven’t actually watched ‘Women Tell All’ yet, but I’m sure it will be nuts as usual).

I’m still very much Team Kaity when it comes to finding Zach a wife; I just feel like it’s so obvious at this point which meant she couldn’t get the first rose at the rose ceremony. I definitely have some questions about why her hometown was in Austin (she said herself that she had only lived there for a few weeks at the time of filming… and she’s Canadian!) That at least explains why the house they met her mom in was so obviously an Airbnb. I think they’re just trying to play up the fact that Kaity and Zach live in the same city, which to me means she wins. Who knows what will actually happen, but their connection just feels right. Hopefully that means we’ll see both Gabi and Ariel in Paradise?

That’s it for me! Thanks for reading an essay I wrote while I had a migraine, lol. I’ll see you all next week.

P.S. Last Friday, paid subscribers got issue #16, “Some Thoughts on Engagement Rings” in their inboxes, which is exactly what it sounds like + responses to my Instagram question box with your thoughts on engagement rings. I explored a little bit more about my own views on engagement rings and how they’ve evolved over time, and there’s a bit of pondering of what engagement rings *actually are* and why we want them in the first place.